There is a limpness in the morning. A reluctance for the day to begin. The clouds mask the sky in a scathing grey that is hard to look at. The rain isn’t heavy enough to induce a sense of tranquillity, but has enough volume to soak any traveller through their clothes. Not that anyone wants to go out today.
There is a sense of dread in the air. It lingers between houses, softly linking people that cannot see each other, bound as they are by sleep or thick walls. Not a feeling that something dire is going to happen today, rather that nothing will happen at all.
If a day like this has ever passed, then it will not have been recorded. A waste of ink for the scribe to declare that nothing happened this day. Perhaps the infrequency or newness of this phenomena that induces this ticking anxiety. Perhaps it is simply the unusual presence of absence.
Whatever the case, the coffee is lank. It’s flat and bitter without any of the depth or bite. It is sipped and unappreciated at the same moment. Eyes watch the world outside. Nothing moves in the bleary haze of rain as it drips down overstuffed drainpipes onto the saturated concrete below.
Is there anyone really here? It all seems so empty. There was no rapture. Just an end. And now it must be assumed that there was no point going out in the first place.
Even the birds are too tired to sing, or else gone entirely.
Paddy Dobson
18th July 2020
Seems very apt today...